Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Curbed commenters make funny haikus about neighbors in neighborhoods. Read them here.

After 30+ years in business, The Travel People on Greenwich Ave have closed. Their cool neon airplane is gone and they're selling all the knick-knacks in their window, where they say, "We hate to leave our home in the Village":

On the racks now, Adbusters #79 has an amazing article about hipsterdom. It's not available online, and so much is worth quoting, but one deadly paragraph will have to suffice. Douglas Haddow writes, "the hipster represents the end of Western civilization--a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the 'hipster'--a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society."

America the beautiful: If you're physically suffering, your doctor will put you on hold and then stick you in a dumpy waiting room. If you're suffering for beauty, the same doctor will provide you with a valet, a concierge, and flowers. [Times]

Take a gander at these designer automatic weapons by Peter Gronquist--also found in Adbusters 79, which says these weapons "play with our throbbing, eroticized notions of materialism, violence, and power." Yes indeed:

Explore the Taming of Gansevoort--how a "glorious wide open space" became filled with "ugly and intrusive" concrete. [ForgottenNY]

Unfortunately, bowerieboogie, a large chunk of "hipsterdom" appears to have become more or less mainstream amongst our upperclasses, even on into adulthood. I myself have always thought the "hipster" archetype's dramatic rise symbolized a decline, if not collectively, at least in the upper-middle class and above part of our country. After all, what else can one say about a culture that prides itself on uncompromising conformity, and ridicules the idea of thinking seriously about anything (except fashionability), and which despises intellectual effort and self-reflexion? It's not a progression. These kids are a bad group to have in line for power at the beginning of what looks to be an eventful century. We'd better all stay alert and informed.

Help Us #SaveNYC

"Jeremiah's Vanishing New York has become the go-to hub for those who lament New York's loss of character." --Crain's

"Jeremiah Moss does an excellent job of cataloging all that’s constantly being sacrificed to the god of rising rents." --Hugo Lindgren, New York Times Magazine

"No one takes stock of New York's changes with the same mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit as Jeremiah Moss... Even as the changes he's cataloging break our hearts a little, it's that kind of lovely, precise writing that makes Moss's blog essential reading." --Village Voice, Best of NY

“Jeremiah Moss…is the defender of all the undistinguished hunks of masonry that lend the streets their rhythm.” --Justin Davidson, New York Magazine

"One of the most thorough and pugnacious chroniclers of New York’s blandification." --The Atlantic, Citylab